Federal Reserve confirms hackers breached site - <AUTHOR> http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/281415-fed-confirms-hackers-breached-site

<comment><USER2> Anon are denying their involvement and seem to believe this is a propaganda operation aimed at getting public support for SOPA style laws:

 _The same day literally hours before this release Department of Homeland security named Cyber threats a severe issue and is trying to use this threat to enact SOPA style laws with executive order. This operation gives them a perfect example of WHY._

From <http://pastebin.com/9aB9vB62>.

<comment><USER3> Anyone can be Anonymous; one person saying they didn't do it means nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The related XKCD <http://xkcd.com/932/> ... however, despite it, we should think about how close web hosting can be sometimes to actual systems possibly. Also, the inherent trust insiders may have of their public presence could be leveraged for an attack on the actual systems.

<comment><USER5> _...breached an agency website and gained access to government information._

That's a bit more than just defaced. And it looks like it was anon. They are bragging about it. But would government sponsored hackers (from say China) brag if they got in even deeper?

<comment><USER6> How do you know it was Anon? Anyone can claim to be Anon. It's not as though Anon is really even a thing, as opposed to an ad-hoc collection of factions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> American laws discouraging hacking will only leave more vulnerabilities open on American networks for foreign hackers to exploit. With one less exploit now open, we're lucky Anonymous hacked the Fed. How long had it been open? How many other entities may have hacked in and not published what they found?

<comment><USER8> Playing whack-a-mole with vulnerabilities doesn't help make anything more secure. Security vulnerabilities are, by and large, systemic issues; fixing individual issues will never make things better, they just reduce the appearance of risk. If you want to fix things, there are two things to keep in mind:

1) Attackers always have an advantage over defenders. Attackers have to find one bug, defenders have to fix them all.

2) Given #1 and the fact that we have such a systemic security fail on our hands, the correct approach is nuking whole classes of bugs. We did this with stack canaries and stack buffer reordering; we did this with CSRF tokens in popular web frameworks; we did this with safe, managed code negating the vast majority of memory corruption bugs.

We need to move past thinking of bugs as isolated incidents and figure out how to make everything better at once.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> As computer technology becomes the toolset of the modern world, it becomes increasingly apparent that current leadership cannot effectively use or manage the toolset.

To some of us, this has been apparent for years. However, it can no longer be swept under the rug, even by the use of entrenched power.

And, if and as they can't use and manage the toolset, should they remain in their jobs?

My own personal history has been one of struggle against ignorant, moronic, and very risky mis-management. Decisions and actions -- or lack of action -- that decreased security and decreased competitiveness.

When I read such stories, I have little sympathy left. I'm sure there have been competent and well-meaning people telling them for years what they need to do. That is, until they were terminated for "rocking the boat" or left for greener pastures.

<comment><USER10> Pas, that's a bit like castigating a bank manager for his lack of locksmithing skills because thieves broke into the branch. I would have more sympathy with your argument if we were talking about poorly-formed economic models or so, but attacking the leadership of the federal reserve over a security breach on a website suggests a serious lack of perspective.

<comment><USER11> These are people who manage an organization that trades hundreds of millions of dollars per day, it's more akin to shaming them because they have a rusty screen door on the front door of their offices.

If the internal monitoring system was functioning and they knew about the breach then they're negligent in ignoring the problems, if it wasn't functioning/it wasn't implemented then they're negligent in not having the foresight to reduce their risk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Its only a matter of time until they rape that place for everything.</comment>


How to Stream mp3 files while not allowing downloads - <AUTHOR>

I am building a streaming service, from mp3 files on my own server.
While testing, I'm using the the <audio> to stream it, while the file location/path/name is coming in from the database, but I'm not sure if it is the right way to do it.
I want to protect the streaming mp3 file from being downloaded, without actually using Flash ( I have read somewhere that file location is embedded inside the swf file, and it's not that easy to download it off there ).
What I want to know is how SoundCloud and other streaming websites / app do it in a more secure way. Include articles / links to posts if possible.
Thanks! :) <comment><USER2> If you can stream it, you can also download it. The only thing that is done in protection is obfuscation of the traffic and the playing, f.e. with closed- source clients (like spotify)</comment>


The most promising new web frameworks / technologies? - <AUTHOR>

What are the technologies that are new, young, just starting to spread in web development? What are new coming "winners"? Especially in python / javascript world <comment><USER2> For me - fullstack dev - it has been celluloid: <https://github.com/celluloid/celluloid>

I had to move most of our apis/background-jobs to node after getting fed up with the concurrency issues that ruby had. This fixes that. Although I don't think it can compare with node/eventmachine on the performance front. But that's ok IMO in most situations.

I am thinking about moving most of our api/background tasks to ruby from node, and using node only for cases that require some sort of proxying - for example proxying an request to a private elasticsearch server after authenticating.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's a pretty good list here

<http://wiki.python.org/moin/WebFrameworks>

I'm sure the winners will depend on your needs. Do you need a full stack or not?

For me, it's either Django or Flask for Python depending on how much of a framework I want to start with. Both are mature projects in active development with a wide user base for assistance.

Right now I'm sort of in the Java world so Play! is my framework of choice.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm aware of both django and flask, although flask I havent used. But I was thinking of new, emergent technologies (not necessarily full-stack web frameworks like django), libraries, trends.

Django is already well established, and so is flask.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In the java world, Play Framework looks real promising. Writing web apps in Java or Scala or even a mix of both is a win to me.

</comment><comment><USER5> Webmachine (<https://github.com/basho/webmachine>) has a very nice, declarative approach (Erlang). It was ported to node.js, but hasn't been updated in a while, unfortunately.

If that sort of thing floats your boat, you should check out Yesod as well (Haskell).

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been rather intrigued with the idea of API-first development, building a services oriented backend while moving most of the business logic onto the client-side.

Therefore, front end frameworks like Ember, Backbone and Angular are what I hope to see spread in web development.</comment>


How Pixar Bosses Saved Their Employees from Layoffs - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekosystem.com/how-pixar-bosses-saved-their-employees-from-layoffs/ <comment><USER2> I'm worried about future of Pixar, they always valued original and insightful stories. All of their early and recent productions were delightful to watch. Understandably, this approach left not so many space for sequels.

They recently committed to making of Monsters 2 and Cars 2. Story outline for Cars 2 is just terrible. It seems that financial concerns under Disney leadership are prevailing and bits of integrity are slipping away.

<comment><USER3> The Story outline for cars might seem "terrible," but think about every Pixar movie's outline before you actually saw it? A movie about Toys? A Movie entirely about Rats--whose going to watch that? A Robot who doesn't talk, for how long?

And yet, each and everyone of those movies were astounding, at least in my opinion, but critics and box office receipts prove my point too.

Yes, sequels have a tendency to be purely money ploys, but luckily Pixar's sequels almost exceed the originals (Toy Story 2 and 3). I'd give the future films a chance before you even see a trailer for them.

<comment><USER4> For me, aside from some interesting landscape rendering, Cars isn't in the same league as the other Pixar films. It felt like a pure kids movie + merchandising extravaganza.

> and box office receipts prove my point too

This isn't saying much. The cost-structure of CGI and effects-heavy films is such that you have to essentially make something that will appeal to kids and/or teens, otherwise you're hosed financially.

I can think of many great stories that I'd love to see on screen that wouldn't really appeal to kids + teens, and therefore wouldn't be feasible with the current cost-structure.

<comment><USER5> I liked Cars. I absolutely hated Up! and Wall-e with a passion.

Cars is obviously a reasonably simple storyline, but it's a good movie with good characters. Kids like cars _shrug_ it's a movie about toy cars... what's not to like?

Better than an obese highly irritating boy scout kid hitching a lift on a house with an old guy :/

<comment><USER4> UP was strange. It was like two different movies that never quite came together. I like slapstick, but man, slapstick and cancer doesn't work. It's like there was a great and weird (good) movie in there but it got cheapened by the clowny Disney mascot kid thing.

I couldn't stand the kid and the bizarre dog voice, but I haven't thought enough about it to see a solution.

Wall-E had some nice moments -- mostly when it was trying to be Star Wars. The Eco-story and human characters were ludicrous.

I want to see what Brad Bird makes next. Incredibles and Ratatouille are by far my favourite Pixar movies.

<comment><USER2> Ratatouille just doesn't cut it for me, I don't care if it's a rat cooking food or not, the entire story just leaves me thinking "whateva".

Incredibles on other hand is perfect in every way. BTW, given the premise of this movie it's possible to make good sequel for it without resorting to "international spies in the world of racing cars".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Remarkably similar to the story of how the jews of Zakynthos were saved during WWII.

[http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/greece/nonflash/e...](http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/greece/nonflash/eng/zakyntho.htm)

</comment><comment><USER7> In 2008, Pixar's creative director John Lasseter explained the secret of their success: "The people who work here are doing what they've wanted to do their whole lives." [1]

This is great advice that can be applied to any type of work, particularly entrepreneurial start-up activity. If you're in it just for the money and don't enjoy what you do, chances are your little start-up venture will not succeed.

It also didn't hurt that Ed and Alvy could stand up to their bosses. In my experience, one feature that separates good manages from bad is the willingness to shield their team from the crap thrown by upper management.

[1] [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1813964,00....](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1813964,00.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> It's funny how the mind plays tricks on us. I had thought that Steve Jobs had made much more off the sale than that - when I looked at their numbers 7.4 billion return on 5 million invested over 20 years? Pffft. Then I ran the numbers...

... it translates to a 44% compounding annual increase over 20 years ...

Oh that I should do so well for anyone that would invest in me!!

<comment><USER9> There's a beautiful coffee table book "The Pixar Story" that talks about the cash Jobs put into Pixar.

The book claims Jobs purchased Pixar for $5M and immediately invested another $5M. When he purchased the company he was also running NeXT. Pixar, like NeXT, was a computer company selling computer hardware. Both companies we're struggling and taking up a lot of Job's cash.

The story goes that Pixar started to produce more 3D animated shorts, these impressed Katzenberg at Disney who agreed to part fund Toy Story. Only to even get to that point, 6 years after Jobs purchased the company, he'd had to invest a total of $60M into Pixar. He was investing close to $1M a month.

Between Pixar and NeXT jobs was nearly broke. Although I suspect his "nearly broke" is a much bigger bank account thank my "nearly broke".

Not sure how true the story is. But that's how "The Pixar Story" tells it.

<comment><USER10> I watched the Pixar Story DVD and when they mentioned that Jobs was writing a million dollar personal check every month to keep the company afloat my opinion on his running the company changed instantly. Most opinions of his role as CEO are really dismissive of him and give all the credit to Lasseter (who does deserve a lot of credit). But Lasseter, beyond working in the company, has no real skin in the game. He doesn't have to justify to himself that this investment may not work out, and continue giving it money...for 10 years. And if Pixar failed its not his bank account that would look like a crater.

So when someone opines that Steve didn't really influence Pixar, I casually mention that $100 million over 10 years gets you a lot of influence. And then ask them to read the pixar story.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great story. Of course if you over analysis it's nothing great, under neath it could simply be that the executives know that the layoffs was just a start. First round of layoffs leads to low morale, which leads to a decline in quality which eventually leads to them being removed.

A lot of leaderships like coaches are usually on short lifespans. The executives knew that by forcing the company to think about losing two top execs it was serious and maybe reconsider. In this case it was a good gamble.

Their intentions is what makes the story great, though. Honestly I would have given a list of people to layoff, but that's why I am not a great leader or a leader of anything for that matter, of any sorts LOL

</comment><comment><USER12> don't worry! disney execs will finally figure out a way to get those layoffs to happen.

</comment><comment><USER13> I watched "ILM - Creating the Impossible" on Encore on Demand the other night, and it was well worth the watch. There is quite a bit devoted to the relationship between ILM and Pixar, and a number of historical anecdotes like this article that are very interesting.

If you haven't seen it, check it out before they drop it. Of course, The Pixar Story is worth watching as well (same people, I think).

<comment><USER14> The Pixar Story has some issues with it--largely cuts out Alvy Ray Smith and gives a lot more credit to Steve Jobs than deserved. I'd recommend reading The Pixar Touch for a balanced portrayal of the company.

For what it's worth, I got to know Alvy by running into him at various Seattle breakfast spots over the years (he's in Berkeley now). If you ever get to hear him speak, be sure to go up and talk with him. He's nothing but a welcoming, smart, and humble guy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you haven't yet, go and watch the Pixar Shorts Films Collection[1]. It includes a fairly long extra with interviews with early Pixar employees, and the challenges they faced with the limited technology at the time.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Pixar-Short-Films- Collection-1/dp/B000...](http://www.amazon.com/Pixar-Short-Films- Collection-1/dp/B000V1Y44G)

</comment><comment><USER16> It's great to see that level of commitment to a team, but it was also a smart move - those guys knew that the intellectual capital sitting in those employees heads was one of Pixar's biggest assets. Get rid of them so they can go work for a competitor? Nuts.

<comment><USER17> Which then makes me wonder: If they _had_ gotten laid off, how many of those employees would have followed them to the next job?

If your employees are valuable enough, and loyal enough, you might actually win either way in that situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> If anyone is interested, The Pixar Touch by David Price is a pretty fantastic look at the early history (both from a business standpoint and from a technological standpoint) of the company.

[http://www.amazon.com/Pixar-Touch-Vintage-David- Price/dp/030...](http://www.amazon.com/Pixar-Touch-Vintage-David- Price/dp/0307278298/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1294850011&sr=1-2)

</comment><comment><USER19> Great story. But look how times have changed. I can't imagine many company leaders today choosing to stand their ground and put their own heads on the chopping block. I'm not sure when it happened, but this kind of servant leadership doesn't seem to exist today. Anyone have recent examples of stories like this?

<comment><USER20> Times have not changed. This level of commitment of managers to their employees is rare now, and always has been.

<comment><USER21> i try not to be a cynic, but if they had even an inkling of their potential, their commitment was economically rational.

<comment><USER22> How many people move to take a bullet because it is the economically rational thing to do? Even body guards don't generally _elect_ to take a bullet unless they really like the person they are protecting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> According to this article, Pixar doesn't treat its employees as nicely these days: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-stranahan/lucasfilm-and- pi...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-stranahan/lucasfilm-and-pixar- consp_b_801432.html)

<comment><USER24> Actually, Pixar is probably one of the best places on the planet to work.

The no-cold-call policy did not mean that employees were off limits completely. We hired lots of people from ILM, Lucasfilm, Dreamworks, etc, but they came to us.

The "evil" of this particular case is pretty overstated. I was there at the time, and basically understood it was happening, and it didn't bother me in the slightest. All those other VFX houses treated their employees like cattle.

<comment><USER25> I can kinda see a practical rationale to a no-cold-call policy: It's pretty well-known when a movie is in production, so one company could throw a monkey wrench into a competitor's film by poaching a key person at a bad time just by throwing a bunch of money.

I suppose that's mostly the case anywhere, but film releases are, I think, on somewhat tight schedules to hit release windows. Cause a three month delay in the release of a Pixar movie and you might remove a potentially huge summer competitor from the field.

As long as unhappy employees are able to look elsewhere on their own initiative, it doesn't seem _that_ bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Had read about this in HBR long back, Thanks for the refresher. The entire Pixar story is very very inspiring.</comment>


Does the OV-10 Bronco top the F-35 for some missions? - <AUTHOR> http://inhomelandsecurity.com/american-legacy-aircraft-top-f-35/?utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=link&utm_content=Outbrain_IHS_February-2017_Is_the_Bronco_as_Good_as_the_F-35&utm_campaign=Blog%20-%20In%20Homeland%20Security%20-%20LT%20-%20AMU <comment><AUTHOR> (TL;DR: Of course it does. Same way the A-10 is better for some missions. And both are _hugely_ cheaper. It's annoying.)</comment>


Musk's Neuralink Puts Computer Chips in Animal Brains - <AUTHOR> https://www.voanews.com/silicon-valley-technology/musks-neuralink-puts-computer-chips-animal-brains <comment><AUTHOR> "Musk presented what he described as the "three little pigs demo." Gertrude, the pig with a Neuralink implant in the part of the brain that controls the snout, required some coaxing by Musk to appear on camera, but eventually began eating off of a stool and sniffing straw, triggering spikes on a graph tracking the animal's neural activity.

Musk said the company had three pigs with two implants each, and also revealed a pig that previously had an implant. They were "healthy, happy and indistinguishable from a normal pig," Musk said. He said the company predicted a pig's limb movement during a treadmill run at "high accuracy" using implant data.

Musk described Neuralink's chip, which is roughly 23 millimeters in diameter, as "a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires."

"I could have a Neuralink right now and you wouldn't know," Musk said. "Maybe I do.""</comment>


Children may carry coronavirus at high levels, study finds - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/health/coronavirus-children.html <comment><AUTHOR> >Age-Related Differences in Nasopharyngeal Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Levels in Patients With Mild to Moderate Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2768952)</comment>


FTP Must Die - <AUTHOR> http://mywiki.wooledge.org/FtpMustDie <comment><USER2> Sounds more to me like "The FTP RFC is in dire need of an update."

I see no problem with that. Perhaps the author would be interested in looking into that?

</comment><comment><USER3> FTP is dead, long live SFTP!

</comment><comment><USER4> I disagree.</comment>


One Codex (YC S14) Wins the CDC's "No-Petri Dish" Challenge - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ycombinator.com/one-codex-yc-s14-wins-the-cdcs-no-petri-dish-challenge

<comment><USER2> Hi everyone - co-founder of One Codex here. Happy to answer any questions folks have!

<comment><USER3> 1\. What bodily sample types can you start from? The CDC page gives stool as an example, but can you work from blood or mucus as well? What sorts of preparation/purification steps (if any) are required in those cases?

2\. How long does it take with your system to get a positive ID?

3\. How often do you get false positives/negatives? How much does this matter (from a clinical perspective)? Are the phenotypes similar enough that it's not that important?

4\. Can you rapidly/correctly classify any _E. coli_ at the strain level, and not just STEC? What about other bacteria?

5\. Have you considered taking this system to the clinic? Have you investigated whether there's demand for it from clinicians? Bacterial diagnostics haven't really benefited from the GAIN Act the way antibacterial therapeutics have ([http://www.nature.com/scibx/journal/v7/n41/full/scibx.2014.1...](http://www.nature.com/scibx/journal/v7/n41/full/scibx.2014.1196.html)). Do you think the path to market will be significantly eased/improved for IVDs by the impending change from cost-based to market-based reimbursement ([http://www.analysisgroup.com/uploadedFiles/Publishing/Articl...](http://www.analysisgroup.com/uploadedFiles/Publishing/Articles/Advanced_Diagnosis_IV1410.pdf))?

6\. For clinical purposes, how would you compare/contrast a NGS-based bacterial ID platform to an AST-based one (e.g., $AXDX's ID/AST system: [http://acceleratediagnostics.com/our-science/culture-free- mi...](http://acceleratediagnostics.com/our-science/culture-free- microbiology/))? Do we really need the genotype, or is it just the phenotype that matters?

<comment><USER2> 1\. We're working from a variety of sample types (those you mentioned) as well as cultured isolates.

2\. The technology demonstrated for the CDC prize takes ~20 minutes to process an Illumina HiSeq run. And there's a lot of further optimization opportunity. Put differently, the bioinformatics are sufficiently fast so as to be "real time" (i.e., they could be stream processed off of a sequencer, and don't require a substantial % of additional time over the hardware runtime).

3\. In general, the false positive and negative rates for our (bioinformatic/in silico) approach are very good. But, ultimately these rates also depend greatly on the underlying hardware and the sample collection, preparation, etc. protocol.

4\. A) Yes, we can identify any strain across a reference library of several thousand E. coli strains. B) Yes, and we're starting with, E. coli, Salmonella, and several others.

5\. Yes - but this getting rather long, so pls. e-mail me (below) if you're interested in discussing further.

6\. I'm not intimately familiar with the system in question, but in general NGS offers greater "resolution" than other molecular approaches. And, as the existence of this initiative at CDC hints, having this resolution is particularly important for strain-typing and other public health functions. Ultimately, we think many of these benefits will also carry over in the form of better clinical (diagnostic) information and data collection.

Happy to chat about this further if it's of interest. My email is firstname.lastname@example.com.</comment></comment></comment>


Google's Andy Rubin Defends Android to Jury - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/copyright-and-consequences-googles-andy-rubin-defends-android-to-jury/ <comment><USER2> "...and we think they all suck."

Was he referring to Limbo?

Plan 9 or Inferno on a smartphone form factor would tempt me to use one. The only reason I'm not using Plan 9 everyday is hardware support.

I don't dare say what I think of Java and Android. But let's just say I see things a little differently than Lindholm.

Rubin used C and NetBSD at Danger before he went to Google. Remember the T-Mobile Sidekick?

Microsoft bought Danger and shut it down.

A sad state of affairs but I guess it's all about the money.

All this and more will be in my upcoming fact-inspired novel, "Litigating mediocrity".</comment>


Tell HN: What I should have noticed - <AUTHOR> Throwaway for obvious reasons.
I should have paid more attention to how much my daughter was afraid of her aunt.
I should have wondered about the abrupt change in my daughter's behavior and personality, rather than just wondering how to deal with it.
I should have noticed how the aunt manipulated us to manufacture situations where she would be alone with my daughter.
I was too busy trying to survive day-to-day life, and hoping to have some time and energy left over for things I wanted to do.  I didn't see the warning signs.  I wish I had. <comment><USER2> I am sorry. I dont know what to say to help you. We cant go to back and make a new beginning, but we can start to do now a new end. And get justice.

I desire good energy for you and your family, and give a chance to forgive yourself. The bad in this world is not a cross that you should carry alone.

</comment><comment><USER3> Many things that are obvious to us in retrospect are not at all obvious when they're happening. You can't spend the rest of your life blaming yourself for not realizing what was going on.

</comment><comment><USER4> Don't blame yourself.

You are obviously not the one that did something wrong.

</comment><comment><USER5> Its not your fault. Humans by default are trusting creatures.

</comment><comment><USER6> don't play hindsight game, hopefully its not too late for you and you can start again

</comment><comment><USER7> Being able to prevent something doesn't make you responsible for it, especially if you had no idea you could prevent it.

Also, you sound like you're in a lot of pain. HN isn't a great support venue. I'd suggest posting on an appropriate, supportive subreddit or forum to start and (as soon as possible) seeking help from a professional. It sounds like your daughter needs physical and emotional care, and you need emotional support.

Good luck and remember that you aren't responsible for someone else's harmful behavior.</comment>


MusicForProgramming(): Focus-Boosting Mixtapes for Everybody - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/5882714/musicforprogramming-focus+boosting-mixtapes-for-everybody <comment><USER2> <http://musicforprogramming.net/> has been submitted and widely discussed here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3547694></comment>


India's contact tracing app is going open source - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/26/aarogya-setu-india-source-code-release/ <comment><USER2> For those who're looking for the source code, the repository will be live tonight at 12:00 IST and will be available at: [https://github.com/nic- delhi/AarogyaSetu_Android](https://github.com/nic-delhi/AarogyaSetu_Android).

iOS repo will be open-sourced a week later[^1].

[^1]: [https://twitter.com/SetuAarogya/status/1265281058532016128](https://twitter.com/SetuAarogya/status/1265281058532016128)

<comment><USER3> Who works at 12:00IST in India?

<comment><USER4> A lot of people?

Relevantly, a lot of developers and ops folks who need overlaps with US hours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow I never expected this from Indian Govt irrespective of the political party. And bounty on top of that for security issues is definitely next level.

<comment><USER6> Likewise - this is welcome news.

If it's mandatory, it should definitely be open source. Hell, anything that is funded by taxpayer dollars should be open sourced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Even though I'm sure this won't be perfect, this is still something I hope other apps follow suit with. I currently use the Citizen app in NYC, but I'm not necessarily a fan of the contact tracing functionality they're rolling out. Open-sourcing it would (hopefully) ease some of my concerns... or maybe aggravate them if I saw some things I didn't like... but at least I'd know how my data is being used one way or the other.

</comment><comment><USER8> In a similar topic there is a reference server by Google: [https://github.com/google/exposure-notifications- server](https://github.com/google/exposure-notifications-server)

</comment><comment><USER9> I think Android is the most important version - about 95% of mobiles are covered. So it is good they are doing that first. iOS is about 3-4% and KaiOS is just 1%, so I think if it takes some more time that's not a huge impact.

</comment><comment><USER10> The French one is opensource as well. There will also be a public bug bounty soon.

</comment><comment><USER11> Github repositories of the Italian ones: [https://github.com/immuni- app](https://github.com/immuni-app)

</comment><comment><USER12> Finally it would put to rest all the fake news about big brother surveillance and privacy noise that was around this app.

<comment><USER13> No, what would have put all the legitimate concerns to rest would have been:

a) transparency into who the developers are, and what the terms of engagement are

b) even if they didn't / couldn't open source the code from the get go, a clear date and target of when they would do so

c) even before the app was launched, a single one page document of the architecture, the regulations governing data retention, etc (all were released post facto, after the "fake news" and "privacy noise").

Concerns about the govt collecting massive, potentially identifiable data on an individual level for an application that they originally mandated everyone had to use to travel, is not "fake news". Perhaps one may feel such concern was unwarranted (and I disagree there), but how is that "fake news"?

We may have differences of opinion on the level of trust one can have on govts, but I'm sure we can agree that transparency and visibility into such critical decisions is reasonable to demand and expect.

<comment><USER14> Like every other thing, even this was politicized in India. There are people terming the app as a "surveillance app" without a proper technical analysis[0].

0\. [https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/aarogya-setu- is-a-...](https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/aarogya-setu-is-a- surveillance-app-will-not-help-those-who-are-most-vulnerable-to-covid-19)

<comment><USER13> How does one do proper "technical analysis" without access to the code, or knowing the architecture? None of those were available when the app was released. Was the shrill noise over the top? IMO, perhaps; but that does not detract from the fact that the application was just announced, with mandatory use if you had to travel (now diluted to encouraged), without any transparency..

National herald is not an unbiased source; it's clearly anti-current incumbent govt, but the argument that people were criticizing without "technical analysis" when no data was provided nor were they (initially) open to even sharing the code for scrutiny, makes me wonder how one could have assumed the app did what it said on the tin, except by blindly trusting the govt.

Which, personally, I'm not a fan of. There is a reason the US federal govt is constrained by the 1st amendment, and not private corps. Govts are unique entities in our societies, with a monopoly on multiple forms of power, and their oversight should be held to a higher standard (again, IMO)

<comment><USER14> Well, people have decompiled the Android app. I believe if someone wants to term the app as a complete sham then they should at least do that.

Note that I am not against criticism of the app. Privacy concerns are full valid and I also want the app to be open sourced in its entirety.

<comment><USER13> Fair point; I think we both probably agree that there was a lot of needless hysteria. However, the ability to decompile / reverse engineer the app itself was explicitly disallowed in the app ToS [1]:

"...You agree that you will not tamper with, reverse-engineer or otherwise use the App for any purpose for which it was not intended including, but not limited to, accessing information about registered users stored in the App, identifying or attempting to identify other registered users or gaining or attempting to gain access to the cloud database of the Service."

exposing the software engineer / group that did it & published the analysis to significant harassment & risk.

One could argue that this was for data protection, but it reeks of security through obscurity, especially the way the clause is worded (including but not restricted to). Whatever the intentions, the initial roll-out was a disaster from the transparency / info-sec PoV IMO.

[1] [https://sflc.in/our-concerns-aarogya-setu-app](https://sflc.in/our- concerns-aarogya-setu-app)

edit: added link to the Software Freedom Law Center India site with details on the clause prohibiting reverse engineering

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A much-needed step. This will improve transparency and should put to rest wild speculations going around about the app.

[https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/aarogya-setu- is-a-...](https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/aarogya-setu-is-a- surveillance-app-will-not-help-those-who-are-most-vulnerable-to-covid-19)

<comment><USER15> Unfortunately, until the server-side code is also open-sourced, it would impossible to say what anyone does with the data stored on a centralized server.

This is the first step toward making things transparent.

<comment><USER14> Yes. It's just the first step. Considering the downvotes to my comment, looks like some people want the app to be completely closed-source.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> EDIT: My bad, didn't read correctly!

What's more interesting, and rather disappointing, is that they are going to open source only the iOS and KaiOS version of the app [1]. I'll be honest, I had to lookup what KaiOS is. Why not Android?

[1] [https://tech.hindustantimes.com/tech/news/aarogya-setu-s- and...](https://tech.hindustantimes.com/tech/news/aarogya-setu-s-android- version-made-open-source-71590501535317.html)

<comment><USER17> All 3 versions are being open sourced. Says so in the article you linked.</comment></comment>


German Official Leaks Report Denouncing Corona as a Global False Alarm - <AUTHOR> https://www.globalresearch.ca/german-official-leaks-report-denouncing-corona-global-false-alarm/5714528 <comment><USER2> > Some of the report key passages are:

> The people who die from Corona are essentially those who would statistically > die this year, because they have reached the end of their lives and their > weakened bodies can no longer cope with any random everyday stress > (including the approximately 150 viruses currently in circulation).

> The report focuses on the "manifold and heavy consequences of the Corona > measures" and warns that these are "grave".

Makes sense, but can you come up with a link to the actual report. The links in the article ask me to authenticate with a username and password ...

</comment><comment><USER3> Read [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Chossudovsky](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Chossudovsky) to understand what this CRG is about. Spoiler: conspiracy theories.</comment>


Resettable Fuse - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resettable_fuse <comment><AUTHOR> One of the references used in this article, "PolySwitch Resettable Devices Fundamentals" (PDF) [0], is also worth checking out as it includes a couple illustrations which help explain how the device works and operates. This might be a better resource for people who are more visual learners.

[0] [https://web.archive.org/web/20150122051210/http://www.te.com...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150122051210/http://www.te.com/content/dam/te/global/english/products/Circuit- Protection/knowledge-center/documents/polyswitch-fundamentals.pdf)</comment>


Python quizzes, interview questions and answers - <AUTHOR> http://xquizzes.com/programming/Python

<comment><USER2> Some of the answers are wrong, or reveal only a shallow understanding of Python. For example:

> What is pickling and unpickling?

> Pickle module accepts any Python object and converts it into a string > representation and dumps it into a file by using dump function, this process > is called pickling. While the process of retrieving original Python objects > from the stored string representation is called unpickling.

The first sentence is wrong. File objects, for example, cannot be pickled. Also, in Python3, which makes a stronger distinction between a 'string' and 'bytes', a pickle returns bytes, not a string. Also, the pickle module can pickle to/from bytes without touching a file.

For another example:

> How will you compare two lists?

> cmp(list1, list2) − Compares elements of both lists.

The answer is "list1 == list2", for most uses of 'compare'. The 'cmp' function is no longer part of Python, and its use was a bit tricky.

For a third:

> What are the rules for local and global variables in Python?

> If a variable is defined outside function then it is implicitly global. If > variable is assigned new value inside the function means it is local.

This is not correct. Consider:

        class Spam:
            x = 5

The variable x is neither defined in a function nor is a global variable.

Looking through the answers, I would discourage people from using this site. It is better to read the Python documentation and FAQ.</comment>


Today's Butlers Are Trading Silver Trays for iPads - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/business/todays-butlers-are-trading-silver-trays-for-ipads.html <comment><AUTHOR> "Rich homeowners are increasingly looking for house managers and butlers with corporate technology experience or engineering degrees."</comment>


Chat database for millions of messages per day - <AUTHOR> I need store messages for a chat system with more than 15 million of messages per day. Which database should i use? The chat system has multiroom messages and private messages. I am think in elasticsearch but i dont now if there is a better database for this feature. Thanks. <comment><USER2> Hi antcar,

You need to split your system into following:

        1. metadata database (i.e. users, groups/chatrooms, etc.)
        2. hot chat history (recent messages)
        3. cold chat history (archived messages)
        4. A messaging queue in front of  cold chat DB.

Fo the metadata any fast K/V store with rich data structures or basic secondary indices will work, You can even use Redis if you use something like RedisLabs with persistence.

For the hot DB, you can use Redis (cluster or sharded), Aerospike, ScyllaDB or ElasticSearch.

For the cold DB, you can use Riak, Cassandra/ScyllaDB, DynamoDB, Aerospike.

You can even use the same database for both paths, but it need to be optimized for mostly write workloads.

15M msg/day ~ 200 msg/sec - any K/V database will do.

For the messaging queue, you can use RabbitMQ or for high t-put Kafka (or any managed cloud alternatives such as AWS Kinesis, Google Cloud Pub/Sub, Azure Events Hub, etc.)

My email is in my profile: [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=nivertech](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=nivertech)

Hope this helps.

<comment><USER3> I'm not related to OP, but thanks for this answer! It is not easy to find a clear answer like that for a complex problem.

The first time I had to build something to scale at day one, it was a long research about databases, cluster/shard, architecture and everything else you described. It worked, but it'd been easier with an answer like this one!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I guess it depends on your needs. Elasticsearch is a great option, and if you're looking for visualizing the data then it can be used together with Kibana to create cross-data graphs and visualizations. For the kind of data volume you're talking of, you'll need a fully scalable stack, with queuing and other buffers to handle traffic. You might find this piece we wrote useful: [http://logz.io/blog/deploy-elk-production/](http://logz.io/blog/deploy-elk- production/)

</comment><comment><USER5> PostgreSQL. Avoid exotic databases they will come back to bite you. Throw some RAM at Postgres and tweak the config values and it will fly.

</comment><comment><USER6> PostgreSQL, or just keep everything in-process on a bigger server. You're looking at a few hundred to a thousand qps, right?</comment>


"should be required reading for every SaaS founder & funder" - The Developer CEO - <AUTHOR> https://ww.teamwork.com/blog/peter-coppinger-developerceo-role-microconf/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, I recently gave a talk at Microconf and decided to be brutally honest.

So far it's got great feedback like "great read on the evolution of @teamwork - should be required reading for every SaaS founder & funder" (see @irltopper).

I really hope this story resonates with some of you and you find the tips useful.

<comment><USER2> Hey there, I think the url you submitted is wrong. You're missing a w in www. Here's a correct link:

[https://www.teamwork.com/blog/peter-coppinger- developerceo-r...](https://www.teamwork.com/blog/peter-coppinger-developerceo- role-microconf/)

Haven't read it yet, but I'm about to :)

<comment><AUTHOR> D'oh. Seems there's no way to edit the link. Might resubmit. Update: HN doesn't let us edit or submit too fast but I did a bit of hackedy hack and the link with "ww." works now. Thanks for the heads up!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Corrected link: [https://www.teamwork.com/blog/peter-coppinger- developerceo-r...](https://www.teamwork.com/blog/peter-coppinger-developerceo- role-microconf/)</comment>


How US cybersleuths decided Russia hacked the DNC - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/how-experts-decided-russia-hacked-dnc-election/ <comment><USER2> How does casual circiumstantial evidince, implying the same actor '100% certainty'? Sorry, there are way too many factual stumbles in this article, and it doesn't really tell us anything except some nicknames, assumptions, and official positions on the issue. This is wordy, and well sourced, but fails to acheive the ambition of the title.</comment>


Web Hacking 101 [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.gironsec.com/WebHacking101.pdf <comment> vezzy-fnord A mediocre, haphazardly put together cheat sheet with often application- specific examples. Pick up _The Web Application Hacker 's Handbook_ instead, or read the OWASP Testing Guide.

<comment><USER2> Thank you for not bashing without providing alternatives

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a good rough draft but it lacks a lot of basic background information. It reminds me of trying to teach programming by only providing a collection of code snippets, these are useful but they won't replace true guidance and they can become a dangerous learning crutch. Don't forget who your audience is (or who you're attracting with a title like Web Hacking 101) and remember that when you write you should be focusing on making it as easy to read and understand as easy as possible for them. Explain the whys behind taking certain steps such as why you should be google searching for sql errors (saves you time, it's easy, google cache pages can show details about errors that are not longer visible on the live site, and most importantly what sql is and the implications of an error).

While it's not about technical writing I think Kurt Vonnegut's advice will help you to make a better write up. Specifically #7. -- Pitty the Readers[0]

Vonnegut mentions The Elements of Style[1] which you'll find useful if you're struggling to give detailed explanations

[0] [http://peterstekel.com/PDF- HTML/Kurt%20Vonnegut%20advice%20t...](http://peterstekel.com/PDF- HTML/Kurt%20Vonnegut%20advice%20to%20writers.htm)

[1] [http://faculty.washington.edu/heagerty/Courses/b572/public/S...](http://faculty.washington.edu/heagerty/Courses/b572/public/StrunkWhite.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Maybe this would be better marketed as a cheatsheet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> not sure if im just old hat, but it always cracks me up when i see security advice in a PDF. I know PDF readers might have improved their track record (actually, have they?), but to me they still give me chills like opening some random .doc off the internets

<comment><USER6> So how do libpdf and pdf.js fare in comparison to the likes of Adobe Reader in terms of security? I've found that I only use those two these days, even for offline PDFs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are some targets to practice on (such as WebGoat[1]) in the answers to this security.stackexchange question:

[http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/21523/sample- vul...](http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/21523/sample-vulnerable- web-apps-to-test-pentesting-platforms)

[1] [https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category%3aOWASP_WebGoat_Pro...](https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category%3aOWASP_WebGoat_Project)

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the link, that is a really cool resource!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is about 'cracking' \- security exploits etc. - rather than a general guide to web programming (which is what I expected).</comment>


Agavi is now on Github - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/agavi/agavi

<comment><AUTHOR> From the Agavi news list:

Hi everyone,

We're thrilled to announce the immediate availability of Agavi on GitHub!

We realize it took much longer than anybody, even ourselves, anticipated. But thanks to the hard work of David, Noah and myself with the assistance of Steffen, Thorsten, Tom and everybody else who provided their support, we finally did it!

A big thumbs up goes out to everyone out there for sticking around during that time and not abandoning, what we think, is still one of the best PHP frameworks available today.

The present state:

There are some immediate effects of the migration: \- Agavi is now installable via Composer.

\- Any link to Trac will redirect to corresponding GitHub page. This should work for most old Trac urls, including the wiki, browser and even changesets. Anyone with existing credentials can still login at [https://trac.agavi.org/login](https://trac.agavi.org/login) and see the old content while being logged in.

\- The Subversion repository will stay available for at least 6 months from now in readonly mode. Any changes made to the Git repository will not be reflected in the Subversion repository. For anyone using externals to specific releases we suggest switching to the Subversion bridge on GitHub. For anyone using externals to a specific revision please contact me off list so I can look up the right revision for you to use on the GitHub Subversion bridge (That sadly isn't trivial and can't be done with a simple mapping).

\- The tickets and commits mailing lists will be closed. Please use GitHub subscriptions as a replacement.

\- Travis CI is set up and will test all commits.

Roadmap:

While this already is a major step forward, there is still more work to do to bring Agavi back up to speed. These include: \- Many small improvements to the surrounding infrastructure (API docs generator update, port documentation to Sphinx, etc)

We will start the 1.1 release cycle in 1-2 months from now. The current changelog is available at [https://github.com/agavi/agavi/blob/master/CHANGELOG](https://github.com/agavi/agavi/blob/master/CHANGELOG) and we should be able to bring even more goodies into the release, including a much better authorization and ACL support, and support for ext/intl in the i18n module.

After 1.1 there will be at least one more minor release. Please check [https://github.com/agavi/agavi/issues?milestone=22&state=ope...](https://github.com/agavi/agavi/issues?milestone=22&state=open) for list of planned features. The last 1.x release will be a long term support (LTS) release, which we plan to support for at least 18 months. The plan for 2.0 is not yet finalized but it will be a mostly incremental update with some necessary breaking changes. This includes moving everything to namespaces and cleanup of a few unsound spots in the code.

Right now we haven't completely figured out the new development model for branching and pull requests for permanent contributors.

Until we figured the best development model, we invite everyone to start creating pull requests for master! We will then make sure it ends up in the next bugfix or minor release, whichever is applicable.

For us, the move to GitHub is just the beginning – we have many plans and ideas to advance Agavi in the future. But we cannot do that without you.

Happy forking!

Dominik</comment>


Xbox Fitness users will soon lose access to workout videos they bought - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/06/not-working-out-xbox-fitness-users-losing-their-purchased-training-videos/ <comment><USER2> That's why I don't rely on anything DRM'ed from Microsoft (games on Xbone excepted). Movies, music, Xbox Fitness workouts; Microsoft seems to think we've forgotten Plays for Sure and MSN Music. When I first got the Kinect hooked up, I tried the Fitness app and noticed they had other workouts for sale. "Hmm, maybe the wife and I can...wait a minute, what the hell am I thinking buying DRM'ed content from MSFT?"

Now, I'll buy the hell out of some iTunes movies or music, and my wife will get stuff off Amazon streaming without me going off on a rant. But that's because neither Amazon nor Apple have _ever_ given me a reason to think I'll regret it later. Microsoft, OTOH, has burned me more than once.

Much like the PfS/MSN Music debacle, MSFT _could_ find a solution (I dunno, unDRM the vids, store them locally) but...eh, too much trouble, might cut into someone's bonus.

</comment><comment><USER3> They trusted their purchases to a DRM'd video service and likely clicked through a contract denying them class action. As such they can pretty much do nothing about it.

May each one make the profound realization how they were legally screwed over.</comment>


Vivaldi version 1.3: Custom themes, enhanced privacy and more - <AUTHOR> https://vivaldi.net/en-US/teamblog/143-vivaldi-version-1-3-the-most-customizable-browser-is-now-the-most-colorful <comment><USER2> Yeah! Vivaldi is a superior, customizable browser with lots of convenient features, making your browsing fast and comfortable. 8)</comment>


Why host and write a blog? - <AUTHOR> http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2012/08/18/Blogodammerung <comment><USER2> A trend I've been seeing on HN recently is a sixth reason:

      6. Promotion

This is especially from technology firms which wants to get their brand out to their target group and also show off their knowledge in hip new technologies.

It's easy to spot them, since they often have a "Oh, and i forgot to tell you: 'We're hiring!'" at the end of the articles.

<comment><USER3> IMHO, promotion would fall under #3 "Influence".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't have a blog, but I write a lot. That's why I could relate to many points raised by this author. However, something was missing.

In my opinion, if you don't write to better understand how you think, you're dead wood. No one can better relate with your brain than yourself, and writing helps that relation grow.

Also, that helps improve your coding skills too. As you better understand how your thinking process works, so your understanding of how to solve coding related problems.

Anyway, in the end there's always someone interested in learning from other's experiences, as long they are a bit enlightening or entertaining.

Anyway, I should start blogging just to write more. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> >In my opinion, if you don't write to better understand how you think, you're dead wood.

Can't agree more. that's pretty much what got me into writing back in my teens. But i have found that without reading,thinking and making connections, it's kinda monotonous and you stop writing. Recently found 750words.com and enjoy the interface(mine's black bg with white text). Infact, last 3 months i have written 50K+ words on that site _. I hear mac guys can use ommwriter, but linux user here.

_ __ my only current gripe being having to store it on someone's server. think i'll build a open-source package.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like Matt Hempey's take on the problem:

      blog blog blog it all, blog it if it's big or small
      blog at the cineplex, blog while you're having sex
      blog in the locker room, babies blogging in the womb
      blog even if you're wrong, won't you blog about this song?

</comment><comment><USER6> "I'm convinced that medium/long-form writing's future is unthreatened; but remain puzzled that nobody in new media has really figured out the elite- curation story and created a place that you go, and then subscribe to with real money, because that's where you have a high chance of being entertained, influenced, and informed."

It seems like Svbtle may be going after exactly what you describe here, although it's unclear whether it will be free or paid at this point.

<comment><USER7> It seemed strange to me that the author would conclude that this is what they expect to happen. If the goal is influence, wouldn't you want the share- ability of free? Then again, if you convince enough influential people to subscribe to your thoughts, and they can share amongst themselves, maybe that nets you even more influence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like this post, but I think he leaves out one potential issue: conversation. We learn a lot through conversing with others, and while I don't think blogging will take the place of chat any more than books or newspapers did, I think it does supplement nicely; I wrote some more about this here: [https://jseliger.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/signaling- status-b...](https://jseliger.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/signaling-status- blogging-academia-and-ideas/) , since I a) write a blog and b) am by now a veteran of the "How and why to blog" blog posts, which have practically become their own genre.

Most of all, however, I don't think most people blog to inform others: they blog to inform _themselves_ , since writing is such an effective means of stimulating thinking.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm not sure why I started.

I like writing, but when someone says he or she reads my blog, I'm a bit freaked out. I mean... I did a couple interesting stuff, wrote a couple articles here and there, but... It always feels weird. Other forms of online discussions took away a lot of the energy and effort I used to put into my blog and, gradually, I mostly stopped.

Oddly enough, today I pulled down a copy of it. I'll start moving it to Plone 4. Since it runs on an ancient version, 2.5 tops, my hosting provider would be very happy if I migrated it to something less... anachronistic.

I will migrate it, of course. And possibly continue posting articles on it. But I don't see myself investing as much time and energy on it as I did 10 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER10> Interesting to see the original question. "Where is the New Yorker of the internet?" I don't see any reasonable online outlets (in English) to publish, say, one long article every two month. You cannot build a self-contained blog around that format, and there is no infrastructure to do it otherwise.

There has been a a period of time where all the Web 2.0 hipsters relentlessly bashed anything with editorial control as outdated, bad, unnecessary and so on. (Which is kind of ironic, considering the whole movement was started by a publisher.) That's part of the reason why, I think.

</comment><comment><USER11> Another reason us to create a diary of sorts. At least for me I wish I had a record of things learnt I could read over some years later and if some other people can also read and discuss all the better..

</comment><comment><USER12> In my opinion, writing and hosting a blog serves several purposes. One, to hone my writing chops. Two, to express my own ideas in my own way... because it's my own "house" online. Three, I've actually landed some fairly lucrative client opportunities because of my blog. Four, it gives me a "home base" content repository from which to draw other ideas, participate in other discussions etc...

There are others, but these are the main ones.

</comment><comment><USER13> Anyone having good tips/experience on getting your blog popular? From day one you start writing and without proper "advertise" you can keep writing for couple months before anyone swings along your page. I would love to start blog, but thinking Im shouting out loud in a vacuum for months really discourages me from even starting...

<comment><USER14> I actually think this is much easier today than it used to be. Write something good, then tweet about it / Facebook it / share it on LinkedIn / post it to Hacker News. You don't need a big audience of pre-existing subscribers to get something good in front of a lot of people any more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> But I thought all these "tech gods" were telling us books were garbage and just dead tree propaganda and that blogs were the only way we should learn anything. Now we shouldn't have blogs, we should just try to piece together knowledge from a few tweets and a couple YouTube videos? You guys are getting ridiculous!

</comment><comment><USER16> I agree that "medium/long-form writing's future is unthreatened", but I'm less sure that blogs are the answer long-term. They're one particular way of publishing, which has pros and cons. Blogs' strengths are: a relatively low barrier to entry, a convenient way for regular readers to follow updates, and not much overhead in thinking about how to maintain a "website" in the traditional sense. Everything is just a new blog post, and at most you slap a few tags on them. Blogs' weaknesses are a strong focus on recency and lack of content organization. Everything is about the recent blog posts. Archives are often hard to use, and many blogs freely mix long-lasting things like essays, with short-form daily-life types of things or comments on current events with a short shelf-life.

An alternative is to separate out several kinds of writing. Paul Graham has an 'essays' page, for example, which is sort of like a blog, but less focused on timeliness and updates. Only essays get posted there, and the focus is not primarily on which essay is most recent (old essays don't quickly scroll off the main page into the archive, for example).

In my own writing, I've come to the conclusion that if I had a blog, it would contain two main kinds of entries: 1) essays I've written, and 2) references to interesting things I've seen written elsewhere. At least for my personal interests, I would prefer those to be separate, and also would prefer them to take more of the flavor of "building a website" rather than "updating a blog". That is, the focus is on the accumulated content, which you can read in any order, not necessarily the order I happened to add it. This is partly because I suspect most people who will run across it aren't ardent mjn fans waiting for my latest update.

So what I've done is have two sections:

1\. Essays, which are organized primarily by subject rather than date, but do also have an RSS feed and show recent additions at the top, for my friends/acquaintances/colleagues who might read regularly: <http://www.kmjn.org/notes/>

2\. Snippets/clippings, where I collect interesting excerpts I've run across. If I had a blog, these would get interspersed with the long-form posts, but I prefer having them separate in a sort of digital scrapbook, for the moment fairly unorganized: <http://www.kmjn.org/snippets/>

I'm not saying that method is the best organizational method either, but so far I like it more than a blog. I suppose part of it is that my thinking on online writing is still heavily influenced by some of the 80s/90s hypertext ideas, and "maintaining a website" versus "blogging". Websites often had an /updates.html page where you could see what was recently added, but that wasn't the _main_ interface. The main interface had some kind of rational organization, rather than assuming reverse chronological order of addition is the universal organizational framework.

<comment><AUTHOR> I noticed a similar usage in my case too. that's two different type of writings. 1. Medium sized thoughts/posts(not really essays, just a few connections i made while reading.around 500 words or so.) and 2. Pithy 1 or 2 sentence comment along with a link. The latter cases tend to be posted usually from my phone.

On blog, not being a good place for long-form writing. I have begun to realize that, i should write the long-forms without thinking about the publishing medium to pay attention to the meaningful long-form _. Infact hate a MS Word s/w for the same reason. and even writing on my 750words page is mostly just a brain dump not coherent. Think vim might be best chance at focused long-form writing.

_ \-- Disclaimer: not an expert in long form essay writings.</comment></comment>


Learn iOS development by building apps - <AUTHOR> http://iosacademy.io <comment><USER2> There is so much misinformation here. I hate to rag on a Show HN, but stuff like this

      > Setup your computer to code like a pro. The freshest
      > developers have the best configured computers

just rubs me the wrong way. Being a computer scientist or programmer isn't "fresh." It's a time-consuming intellectual pursuit that involves complex mathematics and problem-solving abilities. It involves finding elegant solutions to difficult problems by applying proofs, theorems, and algorithms to stupid quirks that arise from the stupidly flawed design of computers and software.

It is NOT, and has NEVER been about cash-grabs or money-making. Let me reiterate this one more time:

0\. You don't need a good computer to be a good programmer, just a good mind

1\. You don't need Git to be a good programmer, just a good mind

2\. You don't need Agile, Team-driven or other corporate development BS to be a good programmer, just a good mind

3\. You don't need to use object-oriented programming to be a good programmer, just a good mind (I prefer functional paradigms, but that's just me)

4\. You don't need to make your program look like other programs, just a good mind (and a good sense of UI design knowledge doesn't hurt either)

If you apply the type of cash-grab thinking that's promulgated here to your development methodology, you will miss out on the tiny details that are oh-so- important to good code and good engineering design. This website misses the same points as Code.org and other misleading sites, that somehow "coding" should be a goal. As if calling methods will somehow teach you something... pfeh. What we SHOULD be teaching programmers is elegance and simplicity.

I think someone else on here has said this already, but you also fail to mention why you're qualified to teach your course. What are your credentials? How do we know that you follow established programming principles and design?

Needs a lot more work to be a reliable source. Again, I hate to say it on a Show HN, but I sincerely think that you can do better a second time around.

<comment><AUTHOR> Morbius,

I appreciate the feedback. I am currently launching this as a beta which is why it is free to begin with. I have amended the line that you didn't like and the feedback loop is extremely important as this will be a highly iterative process.

This is just the beginning and more features will be built every day, but I would rather get feedback sooner rather than later on how I can make it a better process for students in the future.

Thank you,

John

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "The freshest developers have the best configured computers"

Eh, not sure why but this line made me question your credibility.

<comment><USER4> It made you question his credibility, but don't know why? Why?

It's true though. Every developer I know has meticulously crafted their PC for the easiest use. Nobody I know runs stock anything.

<comment><USER2> I think it's because the author of the site places that as an extremely high priority, when configuring your OS is actually something that depends completely on the individual's tastes and preferences.

<comment><USER5> Use of word 'best', which is a trigger word?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Don't require a signup just to find out how you approach teaching. Also, nice landing page but you don't explain why you're qualified to teach.

</comment><comment><USER7> Unclear to me that the instructor is at all qualified to write an iOS app, let alone teach others how to do it.

</comment><comment><USER8> > Test Driven Development

Is this common on iOS?

I talked with someone, and he said his experience were that specs was rarely done by iOS developers. He said it wasn't a tooling issue, but more a community issue.

<comment><USER9> I don't think it's a community thing. I would absolutely use tests if I was writing any interesting, algorithmic code. Compilers, data structures, pathfinding, whatever. But most iOS apps are one half glue code that interacts with a JSON backend, and one half GUI code. Neither half is fun to test. And from my experience with coders who insist on tests, they never catch the interesting bugs anyway - session expiry in the wrong screen, animations that break if you interact with them too fast, using APIs that are not available on $(previous iOS), etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Unit Tests are becoming more popular in iOS as the Rails community strengthens and influences other developers, but I agree there are some aspects in which integration tests using something like KIF can be far more valuable in making sure that the code is working as intended.

<comment><USER10> Unit testing is not exclusive to Rails nor are its origins with the Rails community. JUnit (Java) was written in the '90s by Kent Beck of Smalltalk fame and still figures prominently in the Java community today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > iOS developers earn over $120,000 a year, and the market is growing.

Wait, what? Do you mean "can earn" or "on average earn?" The wording implies that after taking the course you will be earning $120,000/year, which doesn't seem terribly likely.

Sorry to be nit-picky, these wording issues are very easy to fix. Overall a neat looking project, consider showing more about what apps are built and how on the front page. Best of luck.

<comment><USER12> And iOS programming bootcamp graduates are infamous for landing jobs doing basic project maintenance for half that salary. Not that there's anything wrote with that, it's just the vast majority of employers seeking iOS devs @$120k/yr want candidates with successful apps on the appstore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Damnit I'm too late. It looks really cool, and I've dabbled with Android - this looked like the perfect tool to get started on iOS with.

When do you plan on expanding to more users?

</comment><comment><USER14> How advanced do you go? Can you tailor the course for people who have limited experience programming in iOS and want to learn more?

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely! We start at the very beginning with showing you how to setup your computer through (iosinstall.com) and then go on to build 2 applications including a calculator. After that we will be building real world popular applications in an easy to follow video tutorial format! I was in your shoes 2 years ago and the best way to start is to jump in headfirst and just go for it, and this is a great starting point.

Best,

John

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Looks cool. Though, when I tried to sign up I was told that the beta was closed.... hm.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Ryan,

Our beta launch was going to be for 100 users and I did not expect it to get on the first page of HN and be closed out so quickly. Feel free to PM me at firstname.lastname@example.com and I can help you sign up.

Best,

John

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Cool. You may have some tough competition with Treehouse.</comment>


Ask HN: What "Hello World" is for programmers, _____ is for designers - <AUTHOR>

Working on startups (and any webapp), the general advice says that if you are a designer, you should have at least the basics of programming so you have some understanding of what they are expecting and vice versa.
As a designer, it is pretty easy to find a "Rails 101" with a "Hello World" and learn the basics in a few days. In my case, I'm a programmer and want to know the basics of design. What would be the best approach? Most of the tutorials I see about design, seem to consider that you know the basics.
So, basically, I want the "Hello World" of web design. Where is it? <comment><USER2> The problem with design versus programming is that there is no "right" way of doing something. There is a right way of doing the Hello World program, because otherwise the program won't work. But no matter how your design looks, you're still designing. What you're asking for is the basics of designing well, which is a lot harder, since it's so subjective.

Start looking at the basics of graphic design: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_elements_and_principles>

I'd also look at well known web designers and note what works and why you think it works in their designs. If you see a website that's particularly readable, try to notice all the reasons why. Pay attention to elements that you like and don't like. Read about web design elements like grids, then when you get more comfortable, try breaking the grid (helps with emphasis — I find a lot of programmers who start using grids treat them like hard and fast rules that they should never break).

Bottom line, there isn't a yes-or-no answer to design, just building up your "design eye".

</comment><comment><USER3> Buy this book:

[http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Robin- Willia...](http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Robin- Williams/dp/0321534042/)

EDIT: It's a great book. It's not a "Hello World," but it will help you get to the point of being able to make one. It covers a lot of fundamental design concepts that I, as a developer, didn't know but am now glad I did.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have been teaching the same to myself. So far, I have learned:

\- how to do low def wireframes (mokingbird, balsamiq, etc)

\- from wireframes to psd files (fireworks, photoshop, etc)/

\- learn how to slice a psd to css.

What to learn:

\- UI/UX Desing Patterns [1]

\- Css Positioning [2]

\- Grid Systems [3], [4]

[1] <http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/about/libraries.html>

[2] <http://www.alistapart.com/articles/css-positioning-101/>

[3] <http://960.gs>

[4] <http://www.dexigner.com/news/22052>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Just bought the "Ordering Disorder" book from link 4 on Kindle for iPad. That's a great start, doing the first layout seems to be my main problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You'll probably have to read a book. The design discipline, for all it's pretensions at least admits that 'Hello World' is a fallacy.

Visual design works by playing on emotions, perception and psychology. There is no simple reducible formula that governs what people find engaging and attractive.

I'd suggest starting with 'Universal Principles of Design', it's written in a very easy to digest manner, but isn't dumbed down. Then move on to 'Grid Systems in Graphic Design'.

These two should give you enough grounding to 'prettify' for simple projects.

</comment><comment><USER6> The hello world of web design would be along the lines of:

Hello World!

Just Saying.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, I was talking more about graphic design than web design per se. As programmers, we mostly know where to put stuff, my problem is when it comes to "prettifying" it for simple projects where it might not be cost-effective to hire a designer.

<comment><USER6> That's more functionality than one would find in a "Hello World." The simplest approach is Picasso's - steal it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I started doing a series of blog posts on Design for Coders and only finished one before putting the other drafts off to the side. Live post is here: <http://blog.minim.co/design-for-coders-less-is-more>. Shoot me an email and I'll send you the drafts for a couple other articles. If you (or anyone else reading this) has specific questions or topics, I'd be happy to answer/blog about them.

</comment><comment><USER8> Lorem Ipsum.

<http://www.lipsum.com/>

</comment><comment><USER9> Align things on a page only using divs (no tables). I'm still trying.

</comment><comment><USER10> "Lorem Ipsum"?

</comment><comment><USER11> That's tough. A lickable logo?

<comment><USER6> What flavor?

<comment><USER11> Apple.</comment></comment></comment>


Google apologizes for Digg de-indexing, "inadvertently" applied a webspam action - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/03/20/google-seems-to-have-de-indexed-digg/

<comment><USER2> Google admitted the mistake.. oops!</comment>


Nokia Plan B fails after only 36 hours - <AUTHOR> http://nokiaplanb.com/2011/02/16/calling-it-quits/

<comment><USER3> _radical initiatives like seating a bunch of kids on the board of directors_

This seems to be the clearest description of what this "plan" was about. A management of a big company is not a government that you can overthrow. Moreover, doing this is absolutely unnecessary: unlike being a citizen, being an employee is voluntary. If you do not agree with your company's politics you can always quit. Nokia's case is special with this regard: for people living in Tampere there are virtually no options for alternative employment. They do have my deepest sympathy.

As a side remark, I guess, nobody on HN doubt that Elop's business, strategic and management skills significantly exceed those of plan B authors. Turning to this "opposition" (pardon my political parallels) would be even worse for the company as a whole.

<comment><USER4> > A management of a big company is not a government that you can overthrow.

Strictly speaking, it is, but you do it with money, not ideas. Offer the Nokia board $20 or $30 per share and they will throw out the management and institute your own faster than you can say "revolution."

<comment><USER5> Nokia's current market cap is about US$34 billion, so the only people who can do this are the people who control institutions with massive quantities of money to throw around, such as... Microsoft.

<comment><USER4> If you had an absolutely iron-clad plan, it's not inconceivable that you might be able to raise the required money for an LBO. Doubling current stock price is probably out of question, but you might have some luck at least getting the board to look at your proposal. It would require much more than a blog post, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> <http://nokiaplans.com/>

Wow.

(All letters except n, u, w are registered; most are jokes but a few are earnest.)

<comment><USER7> <http://nokiaplanv.com> could really do with some filtering to remove javascript on the output page after the form... :/

<comment><USER8> You mean the javascript that alerted 'hi' and redirected to a porn site?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What was missing were compelling nominees for the executive board. I'd thought that e.g. Haavard Nord (former Trolltech CEO that took the company public, investor and on several small boards) would have made an interesting nomination. (Though I personally don't see abandoning Meego as a poor decision.) It was pretty clear that a collection of small-time anonymous shareholders weren't going to be welcomed by investors with open arms.

<comment><USER10> That and the plan of action was basically "do what we were doing before, only better, and in fewer places". I think Android was a better option than that, and perhaps a better cultural fit in some ways.

And, if I may be permitted a bit of a dig: it was very Nokiaish of them to change their minds so quickly.

<comment><USER11> Nokia had three options they were considering:

A MS WP7 B Google Android C Both MS WP7 and Google Android

<comment><USER12> Apparently, they were also looking at RIM. Link I submitted didn't get much attention. :)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2222379>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think it's becoming obvious Nokia's investors are betting against the company. The Microsoft partnership is not about making good phones people want. It's about getting resources, developing some IP assets and making time so the company can be divided and sold for its parts. It seems they consider this the best value for their money.

<comment><USER14> Now that Oracle has usurped the Sun patents, Microsoft is keen on getting the Nokia ones. Plus, they can control Qt better, which is used in a few desktop systems that compete with Microsoft's products.

<comment><USER15> At least, Nokia released Qt under the LGPL. Plus there's the KDE Free Qt Foundation which guarantees that "This agreement ensures that the Qt will continue to be available under both the LGPL 2.1 and the GPL 3. Should Nokia discontinue the development of the Qt Free Edition under these licenses, then the Foundation has the right to release Qt under a BSD-style license or under other open source licenses. The agreement stays valid in case of a buy-out, a merger or bankruptcy." (see [http://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.p...](http://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php) )

<comment><USER14> Yup, that's a bit of a solace. But nevertheless, without Nokia putting their shoulders under it, development of Qt as a whole might be impaired somewhat. (Not that it hurts me personally; I still use KDE3 ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It was, sadly, never going to work. If MeeGo had been a more viable competitor then it may have stood a chance.

But anyone reading:

"The worst product I've seen so far at Mobile World Congress is Intel's MeeGo OS running on a netboot"

<http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2380359,00.asp>

Must have realised it was game-over.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm still skeptical of this whole affair. They got their 15 mins of fame and came across as the ones trying to make a difference. I understand that they genuinely like Nokia, etc. but this was all too hasty and ill conceived.

The so called "9" never revealed or hinted towards who they were and all they were banking upon was "Meego is our saviour. We don't need Microsoft. We will revolt against the management" etc. without having really put an effort on having a long term plan beyond 1 blog post.

Also, how clairvoyant of them to say that most of the remaining talented software devs would have left by the time their "vision" came to fruition? Are they just talking about themselves here!?

<comment><USER18> I can understand why they chose not to reveal their identities so soon. If they were young as they say, they probably didn't have any power in the organization to speak of, and would almost certainly have been fired within weeks.

Now that the plan didn't work they still have the option of staying at Nokia until they can find a better fir for them.

<comment><USER17> I understand that, I'd probably have stayed anonymous as well but it seemed like it was a hasty decision as staying anonymous sort of took out the credibility since nobody knew how much stake or influence they really had in the organization. FWIW it seemed like a few software developers who were working on Symbian if I had to guess, pledging their stock options and not really anybody from management.

<comment><USER19> The link is not working for me; going to <http://twitter.com/NokiaPlanB/> only shows the following quote: "there are no 'nine young investors', just one very bored engineer who really likes his iPhone"

If this is the case, then I guess that explains the anonimity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I guess that's "fail fast" in action.

</comment><comment><USER21> Pity for Nokia! 5 Years ago, I worked in Maemo (now Meego) platform for 1 year as a subcontractor. I was in charge of one application on the official Nokia 770 firmware. There was lots of fun but the device release was still months later then scheduled.

Nokia's been missing on the web. It doesn't have a real online product. Its browsers on different phones really do not work as I wished, they crash quite often. And this is a huge miss!

Nokia didn't create a software community that are inspired by something|someone. I get inspired by Apple stuff because I admire Steve Jobs. I would have developed Android apps because of Google search engine and lots of stories on how Google succeeded

My 2 cents

<comment><USER22> > _I was in charge of one application on the official Nokia 770 firmware._

Ooh, which one? I had a 770 (sold it and bought an N810, which I still use).

> _Its browsers on different phones really do not work as I wished, they crash > quite often._

The browser on the N810 is rock-solid. The one on my N86...well, I don't think I've ever seen it crash; but that might be because I almost always use Opera instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> An interesting explosion of Nokia plans after the B one. There's certainly not a lack of creativity out there.

It begs the question: what if Nokia, instead of selling their soul to Microsoft, simply would have asked their fans for help?

Yes, I know. Crazy. But, what if...?

<comment><USER24> > _"But, what if...?"_

Nokia had enough trouble trying to keep internal developers on task, e.g Mobile Web Server for S60 [<http://research.nokia.com/page/231>] with Python Integration. One can only imagine the huge time waste that managing all the tangential and marginal ideas produced by third party developers would require.

Nokia has immediate access to a sound mobile OS, a suite of high powered development tools for it, and a technology roadmap extending out for a decade of more. To say they sold "their soul to Microsoft" is unsupported by the facts. It is not as if going with Android would be morally superior - <USER2> the way in which Google leverages individually identifying user data one could even argue that adopting Android would be a less ethical course.

<comment><USER23> I wasn't referring to any third party developer ecosystem with the word "fans". They could involve their fanbase in more fundamental questions like openly asking "which path do you want us to take?".

No, I don't expect any company born in the 20th century (or before) to ever do that. But maybe they should.

> To say they sold "their soul to Microsoft" is unsupported by the facts.

And yet the things you mention are exactly what the soul of a technology company consists of. The nitty gritty OS, the vision of the future.

Of course there are many benefits in joining forces with Microsoft and no, Android is not necessarily a better choice. But the fact is that the software _is_ to a high degree the soul of the devices that Nokia sells.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I thought Nokia plan 9 was to run Plan 9 OS on Nokia :D

</comment><comment><USER26> Plan M is the superior one. I don't think you can top that one.</comment>